My child is obsessed with Elmo

I have no idea where my 20-month-old even heard about Elmo. As far as I know he had never seen “Sesame Street” as of a month ago, when he started demanding “Eh-mo! Eh-mo!” while pointing to the television.

Moconews.net

A bit annoying, perhaps — but definitely not a tool.

Now he’s like an Elmo junkie. At one point a week ago he ripped apart the contents of his travel bag just to find his diapers, which have pictures of Elmo on them. He carried two diapers around the rest of the afternoon, and tried to bite me when I took them away.

We’re slightly alarmed at this behavior, but in a way I also feel a sense of relief. We knew he would get obsessed about something, and it might as well be a furry red monster from PBS. While Joel Stein may think Elmo is an annoying tool, as I parent I consider him the least of a great many evils.

Here are a few television characters that my kid could have become obsessed with, which are far worse than Elmo:

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You can look at my Elmo diaper, but you can’t touch …

Caillou: A PBS staple, and easily the worst cartoon ever. The plot of every episode is exactly the same — Caillou the little boy whines non-stop for a half hour, and the whole world has to stop what it’s doing to accommodate his little whims. I’d rather my kid watch the entire third season of “Deadwood” than a single episode of “Caillou.”

Bob the Builder: This show could get some props, if it wasn’t so obvious that Bob and his anthropomorphic vehicle friends are engaging in non-union labor. Worse yet, you never see any competitive bidding for his contracting jobs, meaning that some shady politician is no doubt funneling these contracts to Bob, and then getting kickbacks. (This is worth a more detailed investigation in the future.)

And the television character I’m most glad that my child isn’t obsessed with …

Thomas the Tank Engine: My nephew has been into Thomas for a couple of years, and I suspect it has cost my sister about four grand a year. Thomas has something like 600 different engine friends, not to mention box cars, cabooses, track, etc, each one costing something like $10. Plus, the cartoons are creepy.